50 Creatives Whose Brilliant Ideas and Beautiful Craft Will Make You Jealous

Meet the top U.S. agency stars from this year's Creative 100

Last year’s inaugural edition of the Creative 100 featured 40 agency creatives—broken down into 10 chief creative officers and 30 rank-and-file creatives.This year we’ve expanded the agency section to 50 creatives (pairs and groups of three count as one entry)—and put them all together, junior and senior talent, into this one list.

We’ve also dug deeper to find younger talent whose names you might not know, but whose work you’ve undoubtedly seen over the past year. They sit side by side here with some U.S.-based global chief creative officers—showing a full range of exceptional talent from literally entry-level people to global network chiefs.

What unites all of them is a passion for the work, an incessant curiosity about the world and marketing’s evolving role in it, and some serious creative chops—from wonderfully unique, clever, business-changing ideas to remarkable executional ability. (Also, they are honored equally on this list—the order does not indicate a ranking.)

Congrats to all the honorees, whose work is the envy of the agency business.

A veteran of Y&R, Goodby Silverstein (twice), Fallon, BBH, TBWA\Chiat\Day and 180LA, Matejczyk in 2009 opened Muh-tay-zik Hof-fer, which has produced breakthrough work for Google, Netflix, Audi and AAA. “There is always a way,” he says. “A way to pull it off, a way to make a brand fresh, a way to solve a problem. The best work is always the result of persistence.” That dogged approach crosses styles and mediums, from the Super Bowl (for SoFi) to the murkier corners of the internet. Recent hits include turning wifi network names at the New York Auto Show into Audi attack ads on BMW; holding a 24-hour video-game auto race on Twitch for Audi (synced to the real-life Le Mans race); celebrating glorious messes for cleaning brand Method; and Periscoping a guinea pig whose movements in a cardboard box amusingly advised college kids whether to study or watch Netflix.

This Australian pair arrived from Grey Melbourne in 2014 and have been integral to several remarkable GS&P campaigns. They dreamed up Sonic’s exquisite “Square Shakes”—milkshakes designed for, and sold on, Instagram. They also worked on the sobering “Unacceptable Acceptance Letters” campaign about sexual assault on campus. They like to take cultural tensions and flip them to find something new. “Instagram was made for food, so why not make a food for Instagram? Students upload happy films of the moment they open their college acceptance letters, but would they be this happy if they knew that one in five [college women] would be sexually assaulted?” Petruccelli says. Adds Cooke: “We challenge ourselves to collect insights every day in everything we do. There’s really no excuse when the internet shares millions of them every second. When you match the right one with the right brief, you get the rare opportunity to make a little piece of culture yourself.”

•Susan CredleGlobal Chief Creative Officer FCB

Advocate of the everlasting, enemy of the ephemeral, FCB’s new global CCO is steering her agency toward what she calls “Never Finished Ideas.” “I am most proud of ideas that endure,” Credle says. “Too often we define success one creative execution at a time. That’s a very short-term measurement considering what our amazing industry is capable of.” A “Never Finished Idea” is one that can be expressed in a multitude of ways over long periods of time, creating richer equity and lasting returns for brands. “The comedic ensemble that is the M&M’s characters, Secret deodorant’s ‘Mean Stinks’ anti-bullying work and Allstate’s Mayhem campaign are all examples of this kind of thinking,” Credle says. “At FCB, our work for Nivea Sun is becoming a Never Finished Idea. Never Finished Ideas are all around us. As an industry, we need the vision and the patience to invest in them.”